Picking up a second language from television: an autoethnographic L2 simulation of L1 French learning

Abstract

This thesis recounts my own two-stage journey of learning French as a second language as an adult independent learner. During the first stage, I 'picked up' the meanings of thousands of French words and sentences by watching approximately 1300 hours of television programs without the use of subtitles, dictionaries, textbooks, teachers or French speaking. During the second stage, I sat a DELF B1 exam, lived in France for 5.5 months where I practiced French speaking, watched an estimated 500 further hours of television and began learning to read French, and then sat another DELF B1 and a DELF B2 exam. The thesis aimed to build on and extend previous L2 research which sought to investigate L2 learning based on characteristics of L1 learning, namely, vii